DOI Heft:
Nr. 2-3
DOI Artikel:Ławniczakowa, Agnieszka: In the Mirror of a Well: On Jacek Malczewski's self-portraits
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18904#0049
4. Jacek Malczewski, Self-portrait, ca. 1926—27, Poznań, Muzeum Narodowe (Photo. Poznań,
Muzeum Narodowe)
This set of Works will be left aside, liowever, and treated merely as a complementary comment.
Alongside these, Malczewski's entire symbolic oeuvre, in whicli self-portraits play a decisive
role, is spanned between his earliest self-portraits from the beginning of the 1890s and his late
ones. His images of himself are striking for the variety of represenfations, though some can be
arranged in series of similar paintings. Self-contained, they often employ motifs known from
elsewhere in Malczewski's art, very often penetrating his most important thematic series. Among
these are monumental and intimate paintings; quitc fantastic and ordinary though with a poetic
trait; pathetic, nostalgie and self-ironical ones. Some are dazzling for the expressive dynamism
of colour or refined, melodious elose-ups. There are also ones whose visual language seems over-
worked as a result of the incessant repetition of a motif. Taken together, these paintings merge
into a huge symbolic self-portrait which unveils the meaning of the concept of art, the goals of
artistic creation and the notion of the artist-creator, and suggests the sources of his power as
well as the limits to the artistic penetration of the world. This comprehensive self-portrait is
saturated with biographic experience, characterises the artist's personality, and above all reflects
the endless process of self-ereation and self-establishment in the sacred space and time of the
universe15.
15. For a firm stand as regards symbolism as art interpretative category with regard to self-portraiture, see: A. Ławniczakowa,
„Próba klasyfikacji przedstawień symbolicznycli w dziełach sztuk plastycznych" (Tentative Classification of Symbolic
39
Muzeum Narodowe)
This set of Works will be left aside, liowever, and treated merely as a complementary comment.
Alongside these, Malczewski's entire symbolic oeuvre, in whicli self-portraits play a decisive
role, is spanned between his earliest self-portraits from the beginning of the 1890s and his late
ones. His images of himself are striking for the variety of represenfations, though some can be
arranged in series of similar paintings. Self-contained, they often employ motifs known from
elsewhere in Malczewski's art, very often penetrating his most important thematic series. Among
these are monumental and intimate paintings; quitc fantastic and ordinary though with a poetic
trait; pathetic, nostalgie and self-ironical ones. Some are dazzling for the expressive dynamism
of colour or refined, melodious elose-ups. There are also ones whose visual language seems over-
worked as a result of the incessant repetition of a motif. Taken together, these paintings merge
into a huge symbolic self-portrait which unveils the meaning of the concept of art, the goals of
artistic creation and the notion of the artist-creator, and suggests the sources of his power as
well as the limits to the artistic penetration of the world. This comprehensive self-portrait is
saturated with biographic experience, characterises the artist's personality, and above all reflects
the endless process of self-ereation and self-establishment in the sacred space and time of the
universe15.
15. For a firm stand as regards symbolism as art interpretative category with regard to self-portraiture, see: A. Ławniczakowa,
„Próba klasyfikacji przedstawień symbolicznycli w dziełach sztuk plastycznych" (Tentative Classification of Symbolic
39